The Truth About Love (album)
:Not to be confused with the song of the same name. The Truth About Love is the sixth studio album by American recording artist and songwriter P!nk, released on September 14, 2012, by RCA Records. The first single from The Truth About Love, "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" was released in July 2012; the song sat firmly at number five on the US Billboard Hot 100 for 3 weeks, and went Platinum for over 1,000,000 copies sold, as well as charting inside the top ten in several other countries. The follow up second single, "Try" received matching success and became P!nk's thirteenth Hot 100 Top 10 hit. The album's third single, "Just Give Me a Reason" features Nate Ruess of fun. and was released in March 2013, eventually becoming P!nk's fourth number-one single, following "Lady Marmalade," "So What," and "Raise Your Glass" all hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100. "True Love" (featuring Lily Allen) was released as the album's fourth single, while "Walk of Shame" and "Are We All We Are" were released as the fifth and sixth singles, respectively, in promotion of ''The Truth About Love Tour: Live from Melbourne''. In the United States, the album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 281,000 copies in its first week becoming her first number one album there, and has been certified Platinum by RIAA after selling over a million copies in the US. The album also debuted at number-one in Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, and Switzerland. The Truth About Love was announced as Australia's biggest selling album of the year and gave P!nk her third time at the top of Australia's year end album chart. The album has sold over 7 million copies worldwide as of January 2014. The Truth About Love samples rock music influences and is generally themed about relationships, breakups and the different stages and cases of love. It features guest stars Nate Ruess, Lily Allen, and Eminem. To support the album, P!nk began her Truth About Love Tour in February, 2013. The tour continued through 2013 and included American, Australian and European legs. Background and development On October 7, 2011, RCA Music Group announced that it would be disbanding Jive Records, along with Arista and J Records. With the shutdown, P!nk and all other artists previously signed to the labels, would release any future material through RCA Records. In 2011, Joe Riccitelli, an executive with the label, announced that P!nk was preparing to enter the studio to begin work on her sixth studio album, to be released in September 2012. On February 29, 2012, P!nk took to her Twitter account and confirmed that she was currently in the writing process for her new record. On June 19, 2012, P!nk announced via video on Twitter that the first single from her upcoming album will be called "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" and that it was released on July 9, 2012. She added, "I think you're going to like it, because I really like it, and I like it enough for all of us." However, the demo version of the song leaked on July 1, 2012, a week before its scheduled release. The next day, it was released via P!nk's official page and her YouTube account. On July 4, 2012, P!nk announced that her sixth studio album would be titled The Truth About Love. Release and promotion On September 6, 2012, P!nk performed "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" for the first time with "Get the Party Started" at the 2012 MTV Music Video Awards. On September 10, 2012, P!nk performed "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" and "Who Knew" on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. P!nk also released lyric videos for all the album's tracks (not including the bonus tracks) all on her official VEVO account. On September 14, 2012, P!nk appeared on Alan Carr's show Chatty Man, performing her first single "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" and taking part in an interview. On November 18, 2012, Pink performed "Try" at the American Music Awards of 2012. Singles "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" was released as the lead single from the album. An uptempo pop rock and dance-pop song with dance music influences produced by Greg Kurstin, "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" received general praise from most music critics, with some of them noting its resemblance with Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)" which was also produced by Kurstin. The song first appeared on the Australian Singles Chart on the week ending 16 July 2012, peaking at number 1. The song debuted at number 8 on the New Zealand Top 40 Chart. It also debuted at number 13 on the Canadian Hot 100 chart. In Ireland, the song debuted at number 23 on the Irish Singles Chart. In the United States, the song charted at number 58 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on the week ending 21 July 2012. The following week, it rose to number 9 and eventually peaked at number 5. "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" also debuted at number 3 on the UK Singles Chart and number 1 on the Scottish Singles Chart. "Try" was released as the second single. The song debuted at twenty-one in New Zealand and eight in Australia. The song became an instant hit, charting within the top 10 in fourteen countries, including at number 1 in Spain and number 9 on the US Billboard Hot 100. Its video was highly praised and was reenacted at the 2012 AMAs, which lead to a notable increase in the sales of both the song and its host album. "Just Give Me a Reason" was released as the third single in January 2013. The song has become the biggest hit from the album to date, reaching the top ten so far in over 25 countries, and #1 in Australia, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United States. It become the highest charting hit from the album in the US, reaching #1. It was the third song from The Truth About Love to be released on YouTube with a lyric video. A music video was shot and released on P!nk's VEVO account in early February. The video features guest vocalist Nate Ruess and P!nk's husband Carey Hart. The song first hit #1 on US iTunes Store on March 19, 2013. The following week, P!nk scored her 8th top 5 hit in the US and 14th top 10 hit overall. On April 29, 2013, it was announced that "True Love" would be released as the fourth single from the album. It is expected to impact mainstream radio on June 30, 2013, with a digital download release date planned for the same day. The song features vocals from Lily Rose Cooper. The song debuted at eighty in Netherlands. "True Love" peaked at fifty-three on the US Billboard Hot 100 and failed to reach the Top 10 like the album's first three singles. On September 25, 2013, P!nk released "Walk of Shame" as the album's fifth single exclusively in Australia to promote her tour film for her Truth About Love Tour. Soon after, she released "Are We All We Are" as the fifth international single and sixth overall single from the album. It was sent to Italian radio stations on October 31, 2013. Other songs "Here Comes the Weekend," which features Eminem, was leaked online prior to the album's release and received subsequent radio airplay. The song was scheduled to be released as the lead single from the album but was scrapped in favor of "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)." "Are We All We Are" was released as the album's first promotional single exclusively in Australia, as a radio-only single; the release sparked controversy amongst fans, who were given the impression the third single would be "Just Give Me a Reason" due to leaked images from the third single's video. "True Love" was released as the album's second promotional single in Hungary. Critical reception The Truth About Love received generally positive reviews from contemporary music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 77, which indicates "generally favorable reviews", based on 16 reviews. Kyle Anderson of Entertainment Weekly dubbed it a "lyrical masterpiece" and praised P!nk's songwriting as "unfalteringly vibrant, loaded with righteous anger, irreverence, and a clear eye for the darker side." Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian commended her for having "the nous to convert raw emotion into pop-punk earworms", although she commented that the "Mariah-slick motivational ballads ... detract from an otherwise fierce record." Andrew Hampp of'' Billboard'' called the album "a peerlessly witty, endlessly melodic tour de force". Consequence of Sound's Sarah Grant commended P!nk for "filtering whatever the current trend is through her unique musical lens" and commented that her "consistency proves she should be taken at her word." Josh Langhoff of PopMatters praised P!nk's hooks and found the album "not bad" for "major label singer-songwriter stuff". Jon Pareles of The New York Times felt that she "is committed to pop impact, not to any particular style", and "recognizes some nonstorybook sides of romance." Allmusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine complimented her "eagerness to dive into the muck of grown-up emotions, expanding and deepening her music without succumbing to stuffy pretension", and called it "weird and willfully, proudly human, a big pop album about real emotions and one of P!nk's wildest rides." Caryn Ganz of Spin called Pink "charmingly unhinged" and wrote that, despite some "objectionable moments" of "rock'n'roll karaoke", "her songs have enough heart, grit, and energy to stand on their own." MSN Music's Robert Christgau viewed that, apart from its last two songs, the album "hits every time" and quipped, "P!nk and her 21 collaborators fashion a recorded image of her feisty, heartfelt, all-over-the-place love/sex life." Although he found it "supercatchy", Jody Rosen of Rolling Stone viewed that the album "devolves into self parody" as "P!nk strains to shock, peppering songs with gratuitous curse words." Hermoine Hoby of The Observer favored its "workmanlike ballads delivered with beyond-workmanlike shading" over its "chunky guitar pop stuffed with shouty, bad-girl choruses", which she considered "dominates" the album. Marc Hirsh of The A.V. Club felt that P!nk is pandering to her contemporaries in pop music, but complimented her "disarming candor that's all the more bracing because it's delivered with a middle finger." Slant Magazine's Sal Cinquemani viewed the album as formulaic and "competently, often frustratingly more of the same from an artist who still seems capable of much more." Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune. perceived "formula production and hack songwriting", but complimented P!nk's personality and its "handful" of worthy tracks. Accolades In his list for Barnes & Noble, Robert Christgau named The Truth About Love the fourth best album of 2012. It also made NPR Music's list of 50 Favorite Albums Of 2012. It placed #11 on SPIN's list of best Pop Albums of 2012 It became P!nk's second consecutive album to receive a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album, and her third overall to achieve the honor. However, on February 10, the album lost the Grammy to Kelly Clarkson's Stronger. P!nk became the artist with most nominations in the category, with three, tying up with Clarkson, Madonna and Sarah McLachlan. Commercial performance In Australia, the album debuted at number one and was certified double platinum within its first week of release, becoming P!nk's third number one album there. In the United Kingdom, the album debuted at number two with 80,000 copies sold in its first week behind The Killers' Battle Born. The Truth About Love became P!nk's first chart topping album in the United States, debuting at number one with first week sales of over 281,000. In its second week the album fell to number four with 94,000 copies sold. On Thanksgiving week, following her American Music Awards performance of "Try," the album leaped back into the Billboard 200 top ten at #7 with 144,000 copies sold. It has earned a Platinum certification from the RIAA denoting shipments to retailers of over 1 million copies in the US. In 2012, it sold 945,000 copies in the US and 446,000 copies in the UK. In Canada, the album debuted at number one selling 28,000 copies. Track listing Category:Studio albums